Euskaltzaleen Topagunea has recreated a new beginning. From now on, his name is Taupa, the Euskaltzales movement. This is a meeting point for the associations of Euskera, which aims to activate the Euskaltzales of the entire Basque Country. The members of Topagune have pointed out that “the Basque, and above all the Basques, we need a more transformative, plural and strong movement”.
On 14 December, Euskaltzaleen Topagunea attended the Kafe Antzokia in Bilbao to publicise the initiative. The organization has changed its name and, as explained by Taupa’s general coordinator, Jasone Mendizabal, “we have dared to question what we are and what we do.” Topagunea wants to “reinvent what he wants to be and do.”
Topagunea has carried out a process of reflection in which he has had the opportunity to listen to the experiences and opinions of more than 200 people. With this process, they have concluded that “the Basque and this people need to make a leap.” And to make that leap, President Irati Iciar says that Topagunea has to move from her place.
Taupamugimendua.eus generated
From now on, the Basque associations will continue to be the main focus of the initiative, but the citizens who do not participate in them will be able to participate in the Euskaltzale movement and want to make their contributions. The institution’s intention is to give Euskaltzales who are not networked opportunities to participate according to their own possibilities and desires. To do so, they have enabled the website taupamugimendua.eus, which allows access to about 3,000 users. Through this platform, Euskaltzales will have content of empowerment and information, will be able to receive and make activation proposals, as well as options to subsidize the movement. The main challenges of the web are two: on the one hand, to propose new and innovative activation alternatives, and on the other, to offer people opportunities and spaces to make proposals. Activities can be very varied, such as digital activism, and especially street activism. Individual proposals can be made, of a group nature, as well as collective proposals that require collective organization.
In this regard, he recalled that, as long as the student movement diverts the new direction, in the spring it will become Euskaraldia and in the coming months the forces will be there.
Widening the Community
The movement, in addition to networking the Basque people, aims to create a wider community: “We have to achieve greater involvement of society. We have the need to strengthen and extend the feeling of the Basque Language”. On the road to the expansion of the community, they have mentioned the works to be carried out, among which are “the review of imaginaries, discourses and behaviors, and the testing of new ways of doing”.
The activation officer, Jon Zapata, has stressed the need to organize a comprehensive hosting network in the expansion of the community. In his view, “organising community linguistic reception is a strategic strategy” and the Basque movement should do so in cooperation with other actors.
Challenge: Create the conditions for multiplying use
Eneko Gorri explained that opportunities will have to be created to reinforce use, “so that whatever comes is the ‘age of use’.” In addition, he added that “for this it will be necessary for the Basque Country to speak Basque in uncomfortable situations and areas for a long time, and also that new complicities are needed to promote this attitude”.
In addition to the will of the speakers, the movement has called for the issue of Euskera to be a priority on the public agenda and for new social, political and institutional consensus to be reached.
At the end of the consultation, Eneko Gorri added: “We need more Basque activists who, even against the current, choose to live in Basque and give birth to transformation.”